Let’s get one thing straight: emotions do not cause disease. The fault of your physical illness very likely lies with something other than you. The whole notion that anything from kidney stones to cancer could be traced back to an emotional block, repressed anger, wrongs un-righted, or any other random psychological hurt from this life or a past one, is so corrupt that it should never be given credence by any rational being. Yet throngs of people with well-intentioned sounding titles like “life coach” or “healer” spread these malicious little bits of victim blaming as if they were offering salvation in a bottle of snake oil.

That said, I want it to be clear that not everyone who identifies as a healer is guilty of either victim blaming or willfully misleading those who they are trying to help. I’ve known incredibly sincere, warm, compassionate people who do their absolute best to improve the health and well-being of others through a wide swath of tools and approaches, arguably with strong results. And, frankly, many people need some form of guidance in their lives and have relied successfully on many such “coaches” to get where they need to be. I’m not condemning whole industries or forms of practice or even job titles here; this isn’t about valid occupations, but rather about those who choose to exploit the fears and insecurities of patients under the guise of offering miraculous cures through attitude adjustment. Continue reading Emotional Illness→

Sometimes, Hollywood gets it right. There are a few films and television shows that have nailed the patient or caregiver experience quite well. More often than not, however, Hollywood uses Cancer (in the broadest sense) whenever it needs to cue a terminal illness to create sympathy without the need for exposition, or force sentimentality when character development and theme are not enough to dredge up a true emotional response.

This problem is far from new. Hollywood has long used a heavy hand to manipulate the audience. And shorthand is often required to tell a story in the confines of two hours or less. Rarely does cancer show up in a motion picture as a fully formed subject, driving the plot on its own or acting as a subplot with any sense of realism or sincerity. It is an issue that has bothered me since I began my own treatment and stumbled into a series of movies in which cancer was a mere tool for pushing emotional buttons, sometimes callously, frequently gratuitously. Warning: spoiler alert — I am probably going to ruin a few surprise plotlines in the coming paragraphs. Continue reading Hollywood and Cancer, Honesty vs a Lazy Sentimental Tool→

We all know — or we should all know — that lung cancer is one of the biggest killers in our society. With an estimated average of 433 people dying every day from some form of this disease, there is no question as to why it is considered such a horrifying diagnosis. Lung cancer kills more than any other cancer, and more than its three closest competitors in the cancer arena combined. If there were cancer cage matches, lung cancer would win virtually every time based on the sheer volume of its devastation and mayhem. Yet, in spite of receiving only a fraction of the research funding that other cancers get, a surprising number of treatments have emerged to help lung cancer patients outlive their initial prognosis.

But you have lung cancer! You’re expected to die. And, by the way, you’re expected to die quickly (and brutally). That is what the common narrative tells us.

Lung cancer treatment has made amazing bounds over the past decade. For a growing number of patients, living with Stage IV lung cancer is no longer an immediate death sentence, if a death sentence at all. For some of them, especially those diagnosed “earlier” in the Stage IV spectrum, while there are still a few months to alternate between treatments to find what works, or for those lucky enough to have an actionable mutation, even this advanced type of lung cancer can be treated as a chronic illness instead of a fatal one. Earlier and better diagnoses have led to younger and healthier patients having a chance to engage in this challenge before their cancer has beaten them down from within, and they have brought a new level of perseverance to the process. Continue reading The Overstayed Welcome→

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As a “Lung Cancer Advocate,” writing for multiple sites is a way to reach and presumably help more people. That is why I sometimes take a break from my blog and contribute to discussion sites like Quora or write for communities like LungCancer.net. I participate on sites like Patients Like Me, Health Unlocked, and Cancer Support Community. I also publish my audio and video blog, The Deep Breath, for subscribers on Patreon (there is a link for the RSS feed for the audio-only episodes). All in, it sometimes seems like I am spread a little thin.

But it is important to reach out in many ways, especially, it seems, when Lung Cancer Awareness Month still seems neglected in the wake of the Breast Cancer Awareness Month juggernaut that is Pink Ribbons and merchandising and organized events at every turn. Not to mention that there are more causes seeking awareness than there are months, and the limited color options for ribbons are often appropriated for multiple causes (sometimes even simultaneously). Continue reading Advocacy, Messaging, and Outreach→

Dropping a bomb or sabotage — what does it feel like when you get the news of someone’s cancer second hand or by accident? That is what I have been pondering this afternoon since offhandedly mentioning my blog address in conversation earlier, without pausing to put its content in context. Since I don’t look like I am sick, a non-subtle reveal that I have lung cancer can be like a slap across the face. It’s a shock. One I deliver, I expect, far more often than I intend to.

I’ve been told on more than one occasion that it should not be my problem, that I should not feel obligated to hold somebody’s hand when I tell them about my “health condition,” and that I cannot be responsible for another person’s reaction to my disease. But I also consider the reality that most people know someone, quite often family or a close friend, who has struggled with a form of cancer. Depending on where you get your statistics the numbers vary slightly, but no matter which source you use the bottom line is that over a third of us develop some form of cancer. That means out of every ten people you know, three or four of them are likely to have cancer at some point in their life. It is no surprise, therefore, that on my street alone I know of seven patients — and I should stress that those are only the ones I know of within less than two blocks, not necessarily the absolute total for the street. Also, I’m not particularly social or friendly, in case that is relevant to knowing what neighbors are up to. In other words, there are probably more of us on this stretch already. Continue reading Dropping the Cancer Bomb→

I meet a lot of interesting people through my lung cancer support group. Most of them are on some form of chemotherapy. A few have tried immunotherapy. Some targeted drugs have been in the mix, along with surgery and radiation. The one commonality between them is their optimistic perseverance. But it isn’t rooted in blind optimism or faith — the whole point of the group is to share perspectives and experiences, gathering useful knowledge in the process. We all come with our own perspectives that inform our decisions and influence how we share, most of us having begun as (more or less surprised) patients that have evolved into advocates. Once in a while, a patient arrives with multiple perspectives built-in, hardwired to see her situation from both sides of the exam table.

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As long-time readers know, I take issue with a number of high-profile “wellness warriors” and anti-science advocates who claim to offer “natural,” “holistic,” or simply “alternative” treatments that can cure cancer or prevent it entirely. Chief among these are Chris Wark and Ty Bollinger, two people with absolutely no scientific or medical training and tons of bad advice. They are part of a large network of disreputable and largely discredited hucksters, many of whom get by on their claims by offering just the tiniest shred of truth mixed in with their hyperbole and insidious messages. They thrive in our increasingly anti-intellectual culture, where headlines and sound bytes sway their customers and their “fan base” into believing that there is substance to their messages. This is why, more than ever, it is essential to take a critical approach to all the medical headlines that are presented, and especially those making extraordinary claims.

The well-established and professionally vetted website, Healthline, has a very good primer on the subject of spotting fake medical news. It could hardly be more topical. There is nary a day that goes by when some website or other isn’t making absurd claims about the latest health craze or danger. Whether it is bloating the risks of GMO foods or misrepresenting the cancer risk from eating red or processed meat, there are more sources out there in the ether intent upon cherry picking data or simply removing it from context in order to sell their point than there are serious outlets for the reporting of science news. Part of the problem with this is that science news isn’t usually considered very sexy or commercial, but a bigger problem is that it is generally difficult for most people to fully understand.

And capitalizing on that, we have opportunists like Chris Wark, a self-proclaimed guru on defeating cancer without chemotherapy. Duly note, of course, that Mr. Wark was cured through surgical intervention and, while chemotherapy was recommended as an adjunctive treatment to lower the risk of future metastasis, there was no indication that he had any actual, existing metastases that needed treatment. To put it bluntly, he was one of the lucky colon cancer patients who had it all taken out without any recurrence. This had nothing to do with whether or not he received chemotherapy, and there is no way of knowing how he would have responded to such treatment or whether his “lifestyle” choices have had any bearing whatsoever on his post-surgical health. Continue reading Common Sense, Clarity and Wellness Warrior Lies→

Why is Critical Thinking important?

Arguably, we live in a time when it has become increasingly important to carefully parse data, even, as it turns out, in casual conversation and friendly communication. The rampant spread of misinformation in the Age of Social Media is nothing new. Conspiracy Theorists and intentional hoaxsters have been an ever-more-apparent online presence since the rise of newsgroups. Even in those near-forgotten days of Lost History prior to our every moment getting logged for “posterity” in the cloud, we had plenty of access to active (and more easily identifiable) paper sources of deliberate misdirection ranging in credulity from The Weekly World News to The National Inquirer — publications finding a non-ironic insurgency in recent years as their online brethren like NaturalNews, InfoWars, and WorldNewsDaily have added to the fodder for the less-Luddite paranoid contingent.

For the sake of reason, it is essential for all of us to adhere to certain standards of Critical Thinking. Just for purposes of general, civil communication, we should all want a basic, coherent understanding of the facts of our world. Philosophical differences aside, it should be a simple task to understand the foundations of science and recognize pseudo-scientific rhetoric as what it is; it should be easy enough to discount rigorously anti-intellectual arguments and logical fallacies

Lately, I have written a few posts on critical thinking and promised an interview on the topic. Although I recorded this some weeks back, I have finally delivered on the promise to upload it.

Logical Fallacies, the Enemy of Critical Thought

Following are a few fun pages that list logical fallacies. They present them differently, so it is worth visiting a few of the sites to get a feel for how they lay them out or categorize them, but generally speaking, they cover a lot of the same ground. Enjoy the journey!

If this post resonates with you, please consider supporting my work through a monthly subscription to my feed on Patreon, or a one-time donation through PayPal. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler and many otherfancy social sites or apps. Please share my posts to groups you are involved with on Reddit or Google+ or anywhere else that you feel it will help or enlighten or inspire another reader. (Sharing buttons are below the post!)

Here’s a thought that needs to be considered. Since the United States is not doing its part to fight global climate change, nature will not be able to keep up. This REQUIRES us to be open-minded about the advantages science offers to help our species adapt. Science-denial is one of the biggest reasons we are in this mess, but science can help mitigate the damage if it is embraced and supported in a reasonable, methodical and pro-active manner. One of the areas that must be re-evaluated by many is the use of GMO crops.

Sometimes a little modification goes a long way.

There is overwhelming evidence from unbiased sources that show the safety of these crops, many of which are modified explicitly to be able to grow under hotter and drier conditions, or in soil that would not otherwise support proper plant development. Already, without the use of GMO crops, it would be difficult to keep up with the food production needs of the planet. Within the next decade, there is little doubt left that human food will be largely reliant upon GMO crops for minimum sustainability. I propose that it is time to look at the science objectively and stop reacting to fear-based marketing that mostly just serves alternative health websites and their advertisers or overpriced processed food manufacturers.

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